THOROUGHLY RESEARCHED, [MOYNIHAN] BRINGS the CLUB’S CULT HEROES to LIFE in a VERY VIVID WAY.” Lfchistory.Net
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“THOROUGHLY RESEARCHED, [MOYNIHAN] BRINGS THE CLUB’S CULT HEROES TO LIFE IN A VERY VIVID WAY.” LFCHistory.net Contents Introduction 9 Foreword 12 Acknowledgements 14 Alex Raisbeck 15 Elisha Scott 30 Albert Stubbins 45 Jimmy Melia 60 Ian St John 73 Ron Yeats 87 Emlyn Hughes 102 Peter Cormack 117 Ray Kennedy 129 Joey Jones 144 Steve Nicol 155 Craig Johnston 169 John Aldridge 183 John Barnes 197 Robbie Fowler 210 Jamie Carragher 224 Gary McAllister 239 Luis Garcia 253 Dirk Kuyt 267 Luis Suarez 279 Jürgen Klopp 292 Bibliography 303 Foreword by Gary McAllister HEN I first arrived at Liverpool in the summer of 2000, I did so very much thinking of the players who Whad been at this wonderful club before me Specifically, the Scottish players I was ambitious and I wanted to win things at the club but I was also very much aware of what those players from north of the border had achieved over the years Ian St John, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Alan Hansen; legends in the game and I genuinely didn’t want to let them down I had it at Leeds too I looked at the greats there; Billy Bremner, Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer; you want to impress and live up to those standards Soon though, you settle and whilst you always want to win trophies and be as successful as you can be, I found I had a huge connection with the supporters at Anfield There is something about the crowd at Liverpool Yes, they are a knowledgeable lot, able to support opponents as well as rip them to shreds, and yes they are capable of making their ground so much more than merely a sporting arena; but there is something extra, something special Maybe it’s because I won things at Liverpool but I do, to this day, feel a very real bond with the fans I was lucky to celebrate with them We won a treble and that open top bus in May 2001 was 12 FOREWORD unbelievable Scary but unbelievable After that sort of acclaim and mutual appreciation, you can never let go You have looked into the eyes of those fans and seen what the club means to them You’ve worked hard, you’ve given the team everything and you have won a trophy, or in our case three That’s great But then you also see what it means to the people and you are lifted even higher You can get good wages as a player, you can look at the medal collection and you can watch re-runs of glorious goals and games, but you can’t beat that feeling you get when you see the pure joy on the faces of the men, women and children who have travelled all over the place to watch and support you It might sound a wee bit romantic and a cliché, but to be able to look back and think of those people, you do smile, and you say to yourself, ‘That’s why I did it That was good ’ A club like Liverpool gets under your skin and the place’s heart and soul is that connection between player and fan I got Scousers immediately Having Robbie Fowler, Stevie Gerrard and Carra in the dressing room helped of course and from the off I enjoyed the company of the locals I remember once at Bradford, I had scored a free kick Right in the top corner Lovely About 15 minutes later, we got another and once again I took it, this time missing the post by about a foot As I strolled away, our travelling fans started to sing, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing ’ That made me laugh That is the sort of humour that connects us Jocks and the Scousers It’s fantastic to be involved with a book like Leo Moynihan’s that celebrates that connection between player and fan To be considered a hero of any sort at a club as special as Liverpool Football Club is an honour, and to be in a book with Carra and Robbie again brings back a wealth of wonderful memories Memories I hope you have as much pleasure reliving as I did playing for your football club Enjoy the book Gary McAllister, September 2014 13 Alex Raisbeck 1898–1909 Appearances: 341 Goals: 19 ESS than a decade in, but they came Less than a decade in, and there they were, in their droves Less than ten years L since their club’s birth and here were their team – for the first time in their young history – champions of England The best around And so they came Liverpool had won their last game of the 1900/01 season at West Bromwich Albion to claim the title, and crowds had gathered at Liverpool’s Central Station to welcome them home This act of mass appreciation would of course in the club’s rich future become common practice but today, this was new and this was wonderful Some squads returning from glorious travels would be greeted by seemingly millions, as they travelled home from far and wide to show off the spoils of war Track, road and air would be used to transport glorious teams in the future but today, for the first time it was the former and the crowds gathered with a novel glow This wasn’t 2005 A hundred and four years later the team returning from Istanbul with the European Cup were met by their own Bosphorus river of red as they showed off the famous trophy for the fifth time This was different, more conservative, 15 LIVERPOOL CULT HEROES more Edwardian in its manner but no matter, hordes of locals made their way to meet the train carrying their men The train’s engine pulls into the station A fife and drum band strikes up ‘The Conquering Hero’, perfect for a team and its individuals who have become more than just footballers at the local club They have captured an emotion, awoken something in supporters who now see them as just that, conquering heroes Steam filled the platform as the engine stopped but then there he was Amid the train’s clouds and the grey Edwardian suits, there was this shock of blonde hair and as he stepped off the train onto Liverpool soil, hats soared toward the station’s 65m-arched roof and cheers rang out This was their captain, their first superstar This was Alex Raisbeck The bond between heroes in red and those who have travelled from Tottenham to Tokyo to watch them would be part of the very essence of the football club for decades to come, but this was arguably the first; the one that set that bond in stone Ask many with a long lasting interest in Liverpool to name an all-time XI and Alex Raisbeck will often be the name on the team-sheet that raises an eyebrow Those picking such teams though aren’t being clever for clever’s sake The football hipster is a new breed of football fan that will take pleasure in telling the pub about what they are missing if they aren’t watching German football or how the next big thing will actually be the Norwegian first division Those who tell you Raisbeck deserves his place in an all-time Anfield XI are not football hipsters They are looking at the facts and the facts tell you that not many players had an impact on the football club like Raisbeck, a defender who arrived, galvanised, inspired and ultimately deserves to be talked about in the same conversation as Liddell, Dalglish and Gerrard Signed from Hibernian in his native Scotland, Raisbeck arrived at Anfield in 1898 and whilst the club had settled into the new choppy waters of Association Football in the first six years since they were formed, they and their fans – themselves trying to get a foothold above their city rivals, Everton – were 16 ALEX RAISBECK in need of a push, a player to bring more than amateurish enthusiasm They needed something special and in Raisbeck they got just that Liverpool Football Club was formed in 1892; the product of a good old fashioned boozy row Everton had been founded in 1878, but the board were soon to fall out with the club president and landlord, John Houlding, a prominent local businessman and brewer The 1880s had seen Association Football flourish on Merseyside and in the city of Liverpool Clubs were popping up everywhere and the Liverpool Cup competition – formed in 1886 – attracted 20 clubs, including Everton Football though hadn’t always been an easy sell in an area traditionally more taken with both rugby and cricket In 1878, the city had not one football club, as the upper and middle classes trying to bring the sport from their public schools to the masses, found an unwilling audience in the working class population of Liverpool John Williams in his brilliant history of Liverpool Football Club writes: ‘There were plenty of returning ex-Harrow public schoolboys living in Liverpool who might have been expected to spread Association Football But because of the stark divisions between rich and poor in the city, sport could not be so easily passed down from local social elites, as had happened elsewhere And, in any case, the poor in Liverpool’s docklands had neither the space nor the good health to play sport ’ Those working people in Liverpool also didn’t have the free time afforded to others around the country The Ten Hours Act passed in 1847 had eventually seen East Lancashire textile workers’ hours reduced and they were granted a one o’clock finish on Saturdays from 1874 From the mid 1870s most men in Birmingham did not even work on Saturdays and playing football and cricket became common practice In Liverpool, dockworkers wouldn’t see free Saturday afternoons until 1890 and by then the Football League was two years old 17 LIVERPOOL CULT HEROES The 1880s though had seen the tide turn 1882 saw over a thousand fans watch an exhibition match on Stanley Park and a year later the local press were carrying results from the newly formed FA Cup competition By now Everton had been founded, firstly as St Domingo, a Methodist Church parish that offered locals both cricket and Associ ation Football This was common practice Football often stem med mainly from religious groups and churches Four